Gentleman (1993 film)

Gentleman is a 1993 Indian Tamil-language action heist film co-written and directed by S. Shankar in his directorial debut, and produced by K. T. Kunjumon. The film stars Arjun, Madhubala and Subhashri, with M. N. Nambiar, Manorama, Goundamani, Senthil, Charan Raj, Vineeth, and Rajan P. Dev in supporting roles. It revolves around a respected Madras-based businessman who moonlights as a thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor for their education.

Gentleman was released on 30 July 1993, and distributed by Kunjumon himself as distributors were reluctant. Despite this, the film became a Blockbuster, running for over 175 days in theatres besides winning three South Filmfare Awards (including Best Film – Tamil and Best Director – Tamil), four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards (including Best Actor and Best Director) and five Cinema Express Awards. It was remade in Hindi as The Gentleman (1994). The film was a breakthrough for Arjun, and established him as one of the top actors in the Tamil industry.

Plot
In Ooty, Krishnamoorthy "Kicha" and his sidekick Mani perform a swashbuckling heist of money of several crores while being in disguise diverting the attention of police, and escape in Nilgiri Mountain Railway, much to the frustration of a chasing police inspector Ratnam. Kicha is a respected citizen who runs a legitimate papadam business along with Mani in Madras. Susheela, one of Kicha's many female employees, has a crush on him and is constantly demanding his attention. Another thing adding to her woes is the arrival of her jovial cousin Sugandhi, who makes the place so lively and playful with silly fights between Mani and Babloo.

Sugandhi later develops a crush on Kicha, after being saved by him from the goons who were trying to molest her. Kicha tells Sugandhi that he has no such feelings for her and wants her to find a suitable husband. Before leaving Madras, Sugandhi steals Kicha's ring as a souvenir. After several unsuccessful attempts at nabbing the thief, the disgraced police officer Azhagar Nambi shaves his head and is left with a ring mark on his face, after a scuffle with the thief. Nambi investigates the design of the mark, believing it was formed by a ceremonial ring worn by Brahmin priests, but to his vain, finds that such a design is uncommon to Brahmin priests, but rather resembles a Thaali - mangala sutra.

Meanwhile, Nambi is forced by his parents into getting married and by coincidence to Sugandhi, from whom he gets the particular ring that he was tracking and finds out that it belongs to Kicha. In an attempt to trap and arrest Kicha, Nambi plots an attempt at Kicha's house where they were invited for a wedding dinner, hosted by Kicha, where he shoots Kicha, but the latter narrowly escapes with a bullet injury in his hand, along with Mani. Susheela follows them to their hideout, where Susheela finds the duo and accuses Kicha of his deed. After Susheela threatens to commit suicide, Kicha reveals his past.

As a student, Kicha was a district-level topper along with his best friend Ramesh, but they both were denied their desired medical college seats despite scoring high marks due to reservation and bribery, which lead Kicha's mother and Ramesh to commit suicide. Due to this, Kicha became a thief to build a college of his own, with the desire to make education available to the deserved, regardless of income, caste, or religion.

In the present, Kicha shows Susheela the under-construction college. To fund the final stages of the college building, aware of the police trap, Kicha makes one last attempt to steal money from the chief minister (CM) and succeeds, but Nambi manages to arrest him. In the courtroom, Kicha demands that the CM (who was previously the education minister who demanded the bribe from him) should come to the courtroom. Though the CM is exposed to the public, he is still let off, which infuriates a youth who was triggered by Kicha's testimony, and kills the CM in a suicide bombing. Six years later, Kicha and Mani complete their prison sentence and inaugurate the college.

Development
After scoring back-to-back successes like Vasanthakala Paravai (1991) and Surieyan (1992), producer K. T. Kunjumon of A. R. S. Film International wanted to collaborate again with director Pavithran and actor R. Sarathkumar; however since they went on to do other projects, the collaboration did not happen. Photographer Stills Ravi and editor V. T. Vijayan suggested the name of S. Shankar who worked as an assistant in these two films. Shankar had prepared a story, but it was rejected by many producers. After listening to the story, an impressed Kunjumon decided to produce the film which would later be titled Gentleman, but on the condition that Shankar accept any changes he suggest, to which Shankar agreed, making his directorial debut. While Shankar also wrote the screenplay, Kunjumon selected Balakumaran to write the dialogues. Cinematography was handled by Jeeva, editing by Vijayan and B. Lenin, and art direction by Maghi, while Vikram Dharma was the action choreographer.

Casting and filming
The initial story revolved the militancy of a Brahmin youth. Shankar wanted Kamal Haasan to play the lead at this stage, but he refused because he felt the story was too similar to Guru (1980) in which he acted and did not like Shankar's take on the concept. When Arjun was approached, he was reluctant. According to him, no directors wanted to make a film with him until the success of Sevagan (1992) which was directed by Arjun himself. Therefore when Shankar approached him with the script of Gentleman, he decided to decline without listening to the script just as he did to a few other directors. But he listened to the script after much persuasion and, impressed by the story, decided to do it.

The song "Chikku Bukku Rayile" was mostly shot at Egmore railway station. The climax scene where a student kills the antagonist in a suicide bombing was inspired from the assassination of the then President of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa. Kunjumon insisted Shankar to rewrite the climax by adding this element, much to the dissatisfaction of Arjun, who felt that his heroism would get diluted. However, Kunjumon remained adamant and it was shot as per his wish. The filming took seven months to be completed.

Themes
Critics have noted the film's resemblance to Ore Oru Gramathiley (1987) due to caste-based reservation being a mutual theme in both and the protagonist being a Brahmin who rebels against this.

Soundtrack
The score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman. Vairamuthu wrote the lyrics for all songs except "Chikku Bukku Rayile" and "Parkathey", which were written by Vaali. The songs were recorded at Panchathan Record Inn, and the soundtrack was released under the Pyramid label. The film and soundtrack were dubbed and released in Telugu with the same name. The lyrics were penned by Rajasri for this version. The original Tamil soundtrack sold over 300,000 cassettes.

The opening of the song "Ottagathai Kattiko" is often thought to have been inspired from the 1991 Telugu song, "Eddem Ante Teddam Antav", composed by Raj–Koti and sung by Malgudi Subha from the album Chik Pak Chik Bam; in reality, Rahman, who was an arranger in Raj–Koti's team, helped them in composing the original song. Once when Rahman went to visit a friend whose house was near a railway station, the sound of trains frequently disturbed their conversation; nonetheless, the train sounds inspired Rahman to compose "Chikku Bukku Rayile". "Ottagathai Kattiko" is set in the Carnatic raga known as Dharmavati, "En Veetu Thotathil" is set in Chenchurutti, "Parkathey" is set in Mohanam,  and "Usalampatti Penkutti" is also set in Dharmavati.

The songs from Gentleman were reused in the Hindi remake The Gentleman (1994), though only Anu Malik was credited for the music. "Ottagathai Kattiko" was later remixed by the French rap group La Caution as "Pilotes Automatique".

Release
Gentleman was released on 30 July 1993. Kunjumon had to distribute the film on his own since no distributors were willing to buy this film as they felt "it looked like a dubbed film". Despite this, it became a Blockbuster, running for over 175 days in theatres.

Critical reception
Writing for The Indian Express on 6 August 1993, Malini Mannath said, "Shankar makes a promising debut infusing his script with action, sentiment, comedy and even some titillating scenes for added measure and tries to give something different within the parameters of commercial cinema. Jeeva's camera is effective in capturing the well choreographed stunt scenes (Vikram Dharma)." K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times wrote on 14 August 1993, "Sankar .. has provided thought-provoking story [..] build up the story well, making us eager to find out why the hero is committing all those robberies." On 22 August 1993, Ananda Vikatan rated the film 50 out of 100.

Legacy
In the 2019 Tamil film Hero, Arjun reprises his role as Sathyamoorthy (whose name is similar to Krishnamoorthy), a man who takes away money from the rich to build a school that is free for everyone. The 2021 film Dikkiloona was titled after the word used by Goundamani and Senthil in Gentleman. In June 2022, a sequel was announced with Kunjumon returning to produce, and Gokul Krishna directing.